


red-letter day

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, F/M, Negotiations, Past Relationship(s), Revenge, Unhappy Ending, spite is an excellent motivator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-22 13:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16598435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Orson shrugged and then winced, his arms going rigid. “I remade the shape of the galaxy in the Empire’s image. Or I could have.” He closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath through his nostrils. Oh, he was furious. Mon could see that much clearly. “If not for Tarkin.”





	red-letter day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



The door slid open, a quiet whish against the cacophony of thoughts that filled Mon’s head. Never in a thousand years would she have known to expect such a turn of events, but now that it had happened, she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if it was a trap, if this was just an Imperial scheme, if it was her mind’s way of projecting her desires out into the universe and bringing them back in the flesh just to torment her. It took nearly all of her not-inconsiderable composure to keep herself upright. Though it had been years and so many treacheries stretched between them, she still recognized the line of his back. Though he no longer wore the uniform she’d grown accustomed to seeing, both white, one a fonder memory than the other, she would know him. “Orson,” she said, and castigated herself for the breathless quality of her voice. “It really is you.”

He turned his head first, offering her a perfect view of his profile, still imperious, still thoroughly him. He’d fit into the Imperial hierarchy so well; as soon as he’d embraced the coup, she’d known he would present himself as the ideal officer. And though she’d seen him many times in the course of their work since she’d first broken it off, she’d never doubted how easily he slotted into that bureaucracy, playing each and every person around him for a fool.

The problem, he’d no doubt come to realize, was that there were people around him who had been just as ambitious as him, just as willing to step on toes, bite off fingers. Apparently it hadn’t gone particularly well for him. She couldn’t say she found it such an unfortunate thing if it brought him here. The sentimental part of her believed it was for her; the pragmatic knew it was for another reason entirely.

They might have loved one another once, but now she knew that love didn’t matter, not the kind they’d shared.

It hadn’t stopped any of the pain from hitting her square in the chest when he’d told her his intentions. And it hadn’t stopped him from choosing the Empire over her, his own ambitions over his love for her. Love, a love that was personal and selfish as theirs had been, was nothing. Utterly pointless. And bent toward pain. Even seeing him again hurt her more than she thought it would and he hadn’t even opened his spite-filled mouth to answer yet.

“It’s Tarkin, isn’t it?” she asked, scraping together as much of her knowledge of the higher level internal politics of the Empire to form a complete picture of his motivations for coming here. She could only imagine it was for a handful of reasons and none of them did Orson any credit. But from what Rebel Intelligence had gathered thus far, Tarkin had been a persistent thorn in his side for years now. And Orson, presumably, in his. Then again, Orson had always been a thorn in someone’s side. It was how he was. Who he was. At one time, that had served him well enough. Now they served the Empire.

Or had. If he was here, that at least was in question.

What was equally in question was just what he expected Mon to do with him or for him. He’d always expected to fight everything back in the day and did so with regularity. He was good at fighting, good at arguing. It was almost enough to exhaust Mon, back when they were together, even though she spent her days fighting and she was just as good at it as he was. Sometimes, he acted as though she were against him, too, if she suggested his whims were a stretch too far, that the stepping stones of forward progress got you to the same places in the end that those massive leaps got, too.

“You’re the one who asked for me, Orson.” She kept her composure because it was the only thing he couldn’t take from her. As low as he might go—and he would, most likely, find the most painful point and press and press and press—she did not have to follow him down. “I hope you didn’t do so in order to waste my time.” A threat sat on the tip of her tongue, ready to be unleashed. But she was uninterested in forcing him to speak with her; she could just as easily let him rot in the brig and let Justice and Intelligence work him out. It made no difference to her what he did.

This was a courtesy, nothing more. A hope that he might get more quickly to his point with her than with someone else.

She didn’t dare hope that he might give up the Empire to her on a silver platter. That would be impossible even if he was willing to help them.

Finally he turned. There were binders around his wrist, its battery humming away. If he or anyone else tried anything, he’d be in for a nasty shock. It might not kill him, but he’d never much liked physical discomforts. He would do his best to avoid them at all costs. Maybe that was why he stayed so still. The tension around his eyes, the tight wrinkles that were so very new to her, that so equally matched her own, suggested as much. He did seem stiff as he looked at her. “You’re looking every bit as lovely as the last time I saw you.”

It was not difficult to stop herself from rolling her eyes at him, but it seemed very much as though he felt her disapproval anyway. A tiny smile twisted the corner of his lips into a crueler expression than she’d ever seen out of him before. It made her sad to look upon it; he’d been so passionate once, and open, truthful to a fault. Now he was bitter. She wondered how much of it she could truly blame on the Empire and worried that it was less than she wanted to believe it was.

“Would you like to try again?” she asked into the silence that followed. There was one thing that had changed. His words used to fill the air completely. And because they’d always been words about architecture and beauty and possibility, she’d found herself caught up in it. Now he stumbled over those words, perhaps uncertain how to speak with her now that she was so patently uninterested in hearing anything that he had to say. She crossed her arms and arched one eyebrow. “Perhaps actually tell me what it is you think I can do for you. Or perhaps you might like to criticize the interior design.”

“It is rather atrocious,” he replied, quick and dry, so much like the old Orson that her heart clenched. There was nothing personal in his criticism of the room. In fact, Mon rather agreed with him. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to turn caves and abandoned ruins and empty plains into works of artistic genius just for the Empire to find them and destroy them. “But the ingenuity has impressed me. You’ve got some good people on your side.”

“I’m on their side, Orson. They’re not on mine. This whole thing is far bigger than me.” She opened her arms to indicate the entirety of the base, maybe even the entirety of the Rebellion. “I want things to be better, but they need it to be.”

Orson merely sniffed and nodded, jerky. It was so unnatural to see him so contained, so quiet. Something had humbled him enough that only the barest twitch of anger showed on his face. It flashed in his eyes though, a fire blazing from within. But not directed at her, no. She would have known if that was the case. She would have felt it burn into the very heart of her if it was she he was angry at. “How very quaint,” he said, through gritted teeth. “It’s a wonder the Emperor didn’t try to punish me more strenuously for ever being involved with you. You’re an even bigger bleeding heart than I remember.”

“You must not have seen my speech then.” It was no matter. The people who needed to see it had seen it. Orson was—he was nothing in the grand scheme of things. A rabid dog biting at the heels of more dangerous men. His reach exceeded his grasp and now he was here. His eyes widened slightly in recognition. There was only one speech that Mon Mothma had ever made that truly counted. Her past in the senate had been wiped clean within the span of a couple of minutes, from aboard the tiny, tiny cockpit of a starship most people would never, ever recognize. “That’s unfortunate. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

She was proud to be a ‘bleeding heart’ in his words if it meant being nothing like him in the slightest.

“Spare me, Mon,” he replied. “We both know it’s not going to work, this… this conversation. It won’t go the way either of us want it to.”

“Then why are you here? What do you want exactly?” She waited a moment for an answer and when she didn’t receive it, she decided it wouldn’t hurt her to prod him just so. She didn’t have infinite time to waste with him, though she still found herself drawn, a part of her hoping she could do something with the mess of a man standing in front of her. “We both know you’re very, very good at demanding it.”

“I want a lot of things,” he answered, finally taking a step toward her. She’d wondered if he would and then found herself wishing he’d step back again. “But mostly I want to see Tarkin destroyed.” He stopped for a moment, ground his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw working one, two, three times in quick succession. “By any means necessary.”

“You want the Rebellion to act as your army. In a fight against Tarkin?” There was little of late to find funny, but this, this was hilarious. A joke. Had to be. “What makes you think we can even take him on that directly? Or that we’d want to?” She shook her head, thoughts flying in a million directions at once. She thought back to the man he’d brought with him, Galen Erso, a scientist, he’d told Intelligence in that initial debrief, about the only thing he would tell them. “What did you do?”

Orson shrugged and then winced, his arms going rigid. “I remade the shape of the galaxy in the Empire’s image. Or I could have.” He closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath through his nostrils. Oh, he was furious. Mon could see that much clearly. “If not for Tarkin.”

Mon grasped her hands behind her back to keep Orson from seeing the way they tightened into fists. She asked again for fear of doing something else, something she would regret, “What did you do?”

Mon wasn’t a naturally violent person, but his words put fear in her heart and fearful creatures lashed out. Everyone knew this. And though someone else may have been surprised, Mon knew her own heart and what she was capable of feeling. Hurting Orson wouldn’t get her an answer and it wouldn’t undo what he’d done. Only if he told her could they begin to unravel it.

That was what she hoped at least.

And maybe it would take an army to handle. As she swallowed, she hoped it wouldn’t.

He smiled again then, chilly and proud. “Perhaps you’ll consider undoing the binders? Trust me when I say I have nowhere else I could possibly go now that I’ve come here. I’m a dead man outside these walls.”

“So you came because you needed protection?”

“I could’ve protected myself anywhere in the Outer Rim if I’d wanted to, no. No, I didn’t come because I needed protection. I came for revenge. And because you were here. The fact that I could find both in one place was merely a lucky coincidence.”

Mon didn’t believe for a second that he was here for her or that he was interested in anything other than defeating Tarkin by whatever means necessary. Still, it would have been nice to believe he still gave even a sliver of a damn about her. They’d had some good times with one another and she’d thought—she’d thought they would have remained together throughout this. They could have been on the same side, utterly unstoppable. He’d had a head for organization and he’d run his teams with such thoroughness that she could only imagine what he could have done as a project manager for their side.

Now she couldn’t trust him, of course, and could do nothing with him. He was useless to her and a traitor to the cause he’d once proclaimed himself to stand with—and in opposition to her.

Such a waste. Such a terrible, pointless waste.

“Orson, speak plainly or I’ll hand you over to Intelligence again and for the duration of your detainment in our facilities. They’re practically salivating for a chance to question you. I—”

“Oh, I’m sure they are—”

“—have no interest in playing this game with you. Not now. Not ever. You will tell me exactly what you want and I’ll give you your answer or a price for it. That’s the best I’m willing to do for you and there’s not a single person in this Rebellion who will give you what you want if I say no or you don’t give me what I want in return.”

“I think I know what you want, my dear. It’s really not that hard to figure out. What’s a Rebellion without the enemy’s secrets? You’ll get what you want, I can assure you. Throw me to your retrievers. They’ll be so happy their tails will wag by the end of it. I can sing a very pretty song.”

She was going to have to warn them to be careful. If he intends to talk anyway, he’ll want to talk about only those things that were advantageous to him. “You haven’t heard my terms,” she said.

“I don’t need to.”

Still so arrogant. She couldn’t help but feel a tiny frisson of amusement at his expense, an old fondness. His arrogance was always going to be his downfall. If it was in service to the Rebellion, that was just fine with her. “You’ll confess in writing to the crimes you’ve committed against the Republic. And when the time comes that we can prosecute you for it, we will. Fairly. In accordance with every protection accorded to those fighting during wartime.”

“I’ve never—”

“You have. And you’re very sorry for it, I’m sure. You’ll give up everyone you know and you’ll tell us every last thing you know about the Empire. If you know the color of Governor Tarkin’s favorite shoelaces, we want to know, too.”

“I’m rather certain the answer to that is burgundy,” Orson answered, flip, like none of this affected him. That was unfortunate. He’d learn very soon how everyone in the Rebellion paid one way or the other. “Though I can’t be certain. He is such a stick in the mud. I don’t think he’s ever met a color he approves of that doesn’t come attached to a rank square.”

Mon couldn’t quite hold back the snort of derision that escaped her at that. “You’re one to talk, Orson.”

His jaw clenched again. Good. Let him struggle with just how ridiculous he was. Casting stones left and right, he could barely see himself for who and what he was. Mon would happily remind him. “Allow me to cut to the chase,” he said, words rigid, so brittle that Mon thought they might shatter if she slighted him even one more time. He’d grown so much more defensive since they were last together. No doubt a byproduct of the Empire’s influence. The Emperor wanted everyone brought as low as they could be so they might scrabble around in the mud for him. Orson was clearly affected by it—and for the worse. He used to have pride, genuine pride, earned pride.

This was a pathetic shade who stood before her.

“I created a very impressive, very dangerous weapon for the Emperor. The first step in a plan to ensure galactic peace and prosperity as quickly as possible. It’s a battlestation, one of a kind—for the moment—and will be able to utterly obliterate an entire planet within a year if current projections hold and he’s somehow able to find someone who can complete Galen’s work.” He said it as though that would be impossible, but there was a time when Mon would have thought the destruction of the Republic and the Jedi was impossible. She fully believed that Tarkin could do what Orson said and more. Even if he didn’t. Maybe especially if he didn’t. “I feel like that is more than enough reason for you to take me seriously.”

Orson didn’t always see people the way they truly were. In fact, he often saw what he expected to see and left it at that.

It was, she supposed, the reason why it had come as such a surprise to him when she wanted him to leave Imperial service as soon as the regime changed. And then later again when she said no more and had done with their relationship entirely. She could still see the confusion he’d had then, the hurt, the sense of betrayal, but it was no less than the confusion, hurt, and betrayal she’d felt in turn when she realized he cared more about progressing than in staying out of the awful work the Empire was doing.

Mon swallowed, thoughts swirling. “I always took you seriously, Orson. You know that as well as I do.” In fact, sometimes it felt like she’d been the only one who’d taken him seriously. Few enough appreciated his work, not to the degree he wanted. “It’s not my fault your aspirations didn’t work out the way you wanted them to. I think most of us here are in the same boat.”

If she were entirely honest with herself, what she truly meant was this: I’m not sorry the fact that you threw our relationship away ended up a pointless waste on your part. I’m not sorry I’m glad it didn’t work out.

“Right, well.” He looked as though he wanted to tug the hem of his jacket to better preserve the line of it. He cleared his throat and couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “My point is if they get it working, they’ll be taking my work and pretending they figured it out themselves. They’ll use it on some sad backwater nowhere and then threaten you with it.”

“And you’d be fine with it so long as Tarkin hadn’t gotten his hands on it,” Mon said. A feeling of unease washed over her, leaving nausea in its wake. The very thought of him being so unconcerned made her feel utterly sick to her stomach. This, at least, was not the Orson Krennic she remembered. He was never quite this calculated before. “I don’t see you weeping about it.”

“That station is a masterpiece. It doesn’t deserve to be in his hands. He’ll just—” He completed a complicated flapping gesture with his fingers, suffered through the discomfort of the binders protesting the movement. All in order to spite Tarkin just that little bit more. It was utterly unbelievable to Mon that he’d grown this embittered by service to the Empire when by every other measure he’d seemed to have succeeded. “—he doesn’t know what it can be or what it should be.”

They’d put him in charge of their most important project. What else could he have possibly wanted from them?

“Obviously it has to be destroyed,” he said, flip, airy, like it hardly affected him at all now that the damage was done. Move on to the next thing, focus on the plan, do what he had to do to see his will played out upon the grand stage of history. “I think you and I can both agree about that.”

What a devil. What a vile, petty, evil little man he’d become. She could not love anything in who he now was and she didn’t even need to try. He made it so easy for her to disdain him and hate him and vilify him within her own mind. She felt relief that he didn’t make this more difficult, didn’t pretend, didn’t try to play more to the sentiments most people saw in her to the exclusion of all else.

So he did remember her, who she’d been, and what she was capable of. That gratified her. Perhaps he had seen her speech and figured out the truth.

“Perhaps we can,” she agreed, peaceable. “It sounds like a heinous device.” Of course it was far more than that in her eyes, but she didn’t dare let him see the horror she felt at merely imagining such a thing could exist. There would be no escaping the might of the Empire if they used it on the Rebellion. Or any of the Core worlds who covertly supported it. “I take it you have a suggestion on that score?”

Orson’s mouth pulled in a self-satisfied smile. He looked as much like a snake as she’d ever seen him. It twisted her stomach up anew. “Galen Erso is as much a bleeding heart as the rest of you. He refused to tell me, but I suspect he’s tried to place some weakness in the design somewhere. I haven’t had a chance to look at the schematics myself—not since he took over—but I’m sure he’ll tell you, more than happily. And if he doesn’t, I’m sure he would if you managed to find his daughter, Jyn, somewhere out there in the wilds of the galaxy.” 

Kidnapping a man’s daughter in order to force him to help, was that really what they’d come to? “Do you have any integrity left at all?”

“Integrity is for Rebels who want to lose wars against titans. If that is your wish, so be it, but I didn’t come here to lose.”

“You’re saying you want to help the Rebels, then. That’s what it comes down to.” She wasn’t sure if he yet realized that she’d got him, that she was going to take his assistance for all that it was worth and then let him rot for the rest of eternity, but it hardly mattered to her. He had information that was vital to securing a victory, perhaps the victory, against the Empire. She might even have pretended to still love him if that was what it took.

She was grateful that it didn’t seem likely, but she would have done it and more for what lived inside his head. She would turn his monstrosity into salvation.

It was what they’d been doing here all along.

“I…” He dithered for a moment, drawing it out, purely for the theatricality of it. “…am saying that I want to help the Rebels, yes.”

“In that case, I believe we have ourselves an accord.” She brushed her hands over her robes, displeased with how sweaty her palms had gotten throughout this interview. Would he always now bring out the worst in her? She certainly hoped not. “Your cooperation will be noted for the record.” A bane and a boon both; he did so hate to have credit taken from him, but should they lose, the Empire will not look lightly on his actions here today.

He blanched a little at that. She could not help but feel a small measure of satisfaction in it. Let him fear for himself a little bit so that he would not take advantage of his captivity here. He will regardless try to turn it to his advantage. No reason to make it easier on him.

“Is there anything else you need at the present time?” she asked, well aware that he still wanted the binders off. She did not intend to give him the freedom from them that he sought, but perhaps she could offer something else, some other small enticement. “Have you eaten yet?”

Orson tipped his head slightly to the side and rolled his eyes. “You know I haven’t.”

“I’ll arrange something for you before you’re transferred to lock up.” She might even bring it herself, just to surprise him, just to see what else she might glean from him. “Perhaps we can get what we both want out of this arrangement.”

It was the only good she could see coming from this, though she balked at him using their alliance to win against Tarkin. She did not want to give him what he desired, but with this, that battlestation, she couldn’t take any chances.

She was not like him. She was not motivated by spite.

She would do whatever it took to see that thing destroyed and the Empire that had let Orson build it for them.

If Orson had to live to see that done, receive better treatment than he deserved, so be it.

So be it.

She could pretend she wasn’t as grateful for that fact as she was.


End file.
